


Proceed Together

by Lacrity



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Female Agent 8 and Male Agent 3, General escape from octarian society and an alt take on it, defo an alternate take, dooby dooby doo, maybe 2-3 chapters idk man it's not meant to be long this was something I typed on the fly.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-10 02:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15940235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacrity/pseuds/Lacrity
Summary: An Octarian escapes from Octarian society. She meets an Inkling named Agent 3, fights him, runs away, he chases.





	1. Chapter 1

Their society was broken, and that’s something she understood the moment she heard the Calamari Inkantation. It wasn’t a gentle revelation nor wake up call, it was a violent torrent of repressed emotions that should have occurred to her years ago with a delayed reaction. Her hands touching her face the moment she came home to an empty home, a cold bed, standard furnishings. 

It was a lonely dwelling that gave her no attachment. Of course she ran on the spot the moment she realized it. She ran far and dodged what she could, utilized her training from the military and managed to get away into an underground subway. The entire journey was lonely, she was cold, on high alert, and had to defend herself on all sides. 

What made matters worse was the moment when she felt she could take a breather, shake off the ink from former allies and closed her eyes to rest. The anxiety, the adrenaline rush, calming down leaving her body exhausted before she feels something press against her chest and opens her eyes wide to see a standard splatter shot. 

The adrenaline hits hard when she feels her hand slap away the weapon feeling a few choice shots of ink at close range smack her and parrying a fist with her own weapon. Making distance, she’s not sure how she did it but she managed to make enough ground to give her enough breathing room and a good view of her opponent.

His ink was green, eyes yellow very much like her own. On high alert upon realization that this was an Inkling. The military had briefed them on what Inklings looked like, flashes of history scrolls and images in her mind, they looked different from what she had remembered and in that moment she froze when she once more locks eye contact with the Inkling before her. 

It was strange to see them, they looked no different from other octarians, although it was strange to see a male Inkling. Military had been filled with females, strong females, and many of the males were left to engage espionage esque tasks rather than infantry. Science, mathematics, behind the scenes work. On top of this being her first time seeing an Inkling, he was male and much taller than she had imagined. 

Jumping to the side and quickly spraying several ink paths for her to immerse herself in, she sees the Inkling engage her in battle. 3 steps and he had closed the distance, her trained body’s reflexes kicks in a bit clumsily, her mind not syncing with the situation. 

The inkling was evidently used to battle with the enemy in live combat. All she remembers is a field full of comrades and machines, trained to do enough damage to render her unconscious, not permanently splatted. Failure was discouraged and punished, but it wasn’t like death was looming. 

This however was different and she keeps backing up as the Inkling advances upon her. Vaguely she can hear the sound of an old voice cheering. She understands tidbits of conversation while she returns fire, escapes into the ink paths she’s created, tries to desperately counter her opponent. He’s overwhelming and frighteningly powerful. 

“Go Agent 3! Splat her! She’s the enemy!” 

Enemy? She didn’t come here to fight, she didn’t want to fight, she’s sick of it. She just wanted to escape. For some reason the words that were said struck a chord within her as the Inkling, named Agent 3, advances once more. 

She enters battle mode, she takes out her sub weapons, her mind is clear on what she needs to do. 

Yet. 

Knowing and doing were different things, her body still suffering from that one lone sentence enables her vision to blur and as she steps back swinging her weapon to slap Agent 3’s weapon to the side. Tears fall, suspended in mid air and land on the Inkling’s cheek. 

She doesn’t want to fight. 

She hopes this message comes across loud and clear when their eyes make contact and she sees ripples. A brief moment of time, sensing hesitation, seeing his brows press together. Perplexed. 

It’s in that moment she aims her own weapon at his chest and makes a few choice shots to push him back and slow him down before jumping back and rapidly making an ink trail as an escape route. 

She’s tired of fighting, frustrated with her own weakness, and terrified of the creeping idea that, no matter how far she ran, she would never be given a long enough moment to rest, that the fighting would never end. 

She doesn’t look back to notice the stunned Agent 3 staring at her retreating form before getting up quickly to follow her. She’s desperate to escape this battle and find a place to rest. She distantly hears an old weathered voice echo calling after but the words are garbled up. Don’t look back, it’s contrary to what they were taught in the military, it’s contrary to what she’s been doing this entire time, all of it was contrary and understood that this autonomous thought, was her own driven by something that they didn’t teach them. 

Fear and Hope. 

It feels like she managed to gain ground, yet the distant sounds of a weapon and the sound of someone gaining on her starts to take its toll on her mentally. It isn’t until she makes a wrong turn and tries to turn to alter her direction, does she find herself face to face with the Inkling pursuing her. 

Weapon drawn to take another shot, he slaps it away with his own and comes in close. She reaches down to take out a sub weapon and feels him grab her free hand.He drops his weapon, grips her other wrist tight enough to make her let go and in that moment they’re both quiet. 

“You don’t want to fight?” 

Agent 3’s voice is soft, low and raspy from disuse. Staring straight into his eyes before slowly nodding her head and feeling the energy leave her body after confirming her lack of desire to fight. The lack of sleep and energy catching up to her. 

Body shutting down. 

The last thing she hears is a splash and the sounds of another presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to finish it up later it's very late right now.
> 
> 4give me for no edits I just wanted to get this out of my system. I love Agent 24 ships regardless of gender man.
> 
> Edit: I'll be making this longer and bumping up the rating.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wakes up and sees him there.

Everything was burning, her entire body felt sore and while there were many ways to describe both the level and overwhelming sensations, it all barreled down to her body being sore as hell. 

Despite her body screaming at her not to get up and just stay in her half fetal, half cramped reclined position, she had to. There was no luxury to stay idle and wait for it to die down. About to get up as fast as her limbs would allow without opening her eyes, she feels like a part of her body is curving. Sort of like when you roll down a steep hell without any brakes. Pausing so she doesn’t make it worse for herself, she moves her body a bit slower. 

Almost afraid to open her eyes, to add onto the vertigo and possibly reacquaint her mouth with the taste of bile and further empty her stomach. Tentatively she adjusts her posture, tries to wait for the spinning and curving sensations to die down before opening her eyes to look around and observe her surroundings. It feels excruciating, waiting for it to stop and eventually settle into a dull ache in the middle of her forehead. 

She doesn’t want to confirm her suspicions of her location, the texture of the metallic and grimy surface left a lot to her imagination. The stench was unbearably disgusting. The silence felt heavy and she felt terrified of making a sound in case she make an echo to confirm her suspicions. 

But she has to. 

Slowly opening her eyes and closing it quickly after wincing at the lights themselves, a sterile hospital esque lighting that makes someone a lot more sick than better after a while of looking at it. The hunger pangs attack and holding her stomach to bend over to ease some of it, a reminder of how real the situation was. 

What she did. 

Was it really smart to escape like that? It was her home after all. Her arms wobble just a bit, the exhaustion and constant pain makes it hard for her to stay up. Opening her eyes once again she blinks past the blurs, the unfocused and unknown objects becoming clearer. Feeling mild anxiety at the sight of a blue blob taking shape that seems to fuel it the more clear her view became. 

After a while she confirms that the blue blob she saw earlier was none other than the Inkling she had encountered earlier. 

Agent 3. 

She crawls back and slips, falls on her back and hits the back of her head a bit which makes her headache flare up and the dizziness return. She doesn’t wait for herself to reorient, there was no sense in staying there. Looking around quickly and feeling the urge the puke, weapon, weapon, where’s a weapon? An exit? 

In frustration and anxiety she shakily stands and almost falls over, forcing herself to get as far as possible from the unconscious inkling. Adrenaline rush coming back and clouding her thoughts as she finds herself in a rush of hyper focus and branches of conclusions that were both extreme and nonsensical. She has to calm down, but that’s the thing, she was never good at calming down. 

Despite her old home’s desire to mold her into a perfect soldier, she was everything but that. A failure that was next in line to being sanitized. Perhaps it was the excess of sympathy, the way she had a hard time controlling her emotions compared to other Octarian soldiers, or maybe it was just the fact that she always hesitated at the worst moments. 

A mixture of fear at the events that happened not too long ago and the failings of her upbringing, it causes her to bang her fist against something, more pain, an echo that was louder than she wanted it to be, and her closing her eyes reflexively. It was too loud, that would wake him up. 

A damn fool. She was sure she had done it now and looks quickly to the location of Agent 3. Unable to stop herself from spinning her head too fast and losing her balance to fall right on her chin. 

“GHK!” She can’t stop beating herself up for her series of mistakes and it’s likely to cost her life at this rate. Trying to focus and finding to her relief that Agent 3 was still unconscious, eyes wandering towards the weapon at his hip. 

It might have been the hunger, the exhaustion, the survival instincts and adrenaline rush going on overdrive, perhaps it was her anxiety talking. Regardless of what it was, it overrode her need to maintain distance and persuade her that her idea was bad and that she should focus on running instead. 

A stupid decision really. 

An automatic impulse to hobble over and tentatively reach for the weapon, almost home free before feeling a familiar hand on her wrist and the world spins once more. A soft sound escapes her lips when it happens, eyes closed to minimize the amount of spinning her vision was doing and finding herself unable to repress the urge to puke, doing so and landing whatever was in her stomach on whoever flipped her, and a bit on herself. Hearing a disgusted grunt. 

She feels like someone’s talking to her but her head hurts too much to form words and right now she doesn’t enjoy the position she’s in at the moment. Opening her eyes, bleary with unshed tears. Yellow, gold? Greenish yellow? It’s very hard to tell the specifics of what color she was looking at but they belonged to an intense gaze and it made her feel unnerved. 

By the time her mind comes back into focus, she manages to catch his words. “The Octarian that doesn’t want to fight.” 

If her hands weren’t restrained she would have retorted with something witty, she still could, but she wasn’t sure if he would be able to understand a series of rhythmic tongue clicks. It doesn’t stop her from trying though. 

[The Inkling that pushes down women.] 

She notes that his eyes flash in some recognition and curiosity, like he understood what she just said and it’s further confirmed with the slight quirk of his lips. 

“If I were that depraved that would have actually hurt.” He looks down at her body, she knows he’s looking for a sign of a weapon, she feels vunerable though, with her midriff exposed and her short skirt showing signs of tattering. “No weapons. I guess you’re clear.” Letting go and getting off of her to scoot away from her. 

[How do you know if i’m safe or not?] Her clicks continue, she wants to sign but her hands and arms are tired and she doesn’t want to guess whether or not he understood sign language either. 

“I may not be the best judge of character but I know the difference between someone who’s ready and capable of fighting and someone who’s on their last legs.” Rolling his shoulders a bit to appear relaxed, which doesn’t fool the Octarian in the least. She’s recognized many of her sisters when they’re in pseudo resting position, Agent 3 was still vigilant towards her and in a sense, so was she to him. 

[How do you know if it’s a farce or not?] 

“Please, you don’t look very smart.” 

How insulting, though she can’t refute his claim. She did after all escape from Octarian Society, barely equipped, didn’t think about food or anything, one weapon, wow she really was kind of an idiot. 

“But you’re smart enough to leave.” The silence is heavy and she looks away. The conversation started out somewhat tense and pleasant, but now the tension had doubled and all she wants to do is leave. 

After a while she finally clicks out more words with her tongue, starting to feel tired of it. She wants to rest more but she needs to move, explore, get out of here. 

[Sorry about puking on your shirt.] \

“It’s fine, I’m already covered in disgusting stuff from wandering around for weeks, it’ll dry or I’ll take an octarian soldier’s shirt.” 

The image of the inkling next to her in a short midriff shirt is an oddly funny one, imagining him taking off the shirt of a splatted Octarian with a casual poker face and trying to squeeze into one elicits a small snort from her, even if she didn’t mean to before looking away. 

From the corner of her eye, a slight quirk of lips. The tension is gone from their silence, but the wariness remains. Without waiting for a response, Agent 3 gets up and starts to move. Unwilling to be left alone and uncertain of the situation, the Octarian decides to follow. 

Even if she’s still terrified of the idea of being splatted right there, they had amiable (?) conversation, and he was her best bet, provided he had a weapon and seemed to know where he was going. 

[Name?] 

It occurs to her that mentally calling him Agent 3 sounded dumb and getting an alternative name might help. The Inkling doesn’t turn around, he just grunts a reply and mutters softly. 

“Three.” Which honestly sounded dumber. 

“What about your name?” He only looks back for a second and she notes that his tentacles move just a tiny bit at the back of his head to indicate head movement. She doesn’t answer as they walk past turnstiles and enter an area that has distinct ink trails. Finally she answers. 

[Eight.] An immediate snort is heard from Three and unconsciously she feels her cheeks puff out in indignation. “Sorry it just seemed predictable, ya know, octopus, eight, it suits you.” She would retort more but feels another wave of nausea and leans against the wall to puke more, hearing Three stop and wait for her to finish before moving again. She supposes that’s a form of kindness in itself. 

Sorta. 

“Ah.” Three makes a sound and looks at the pink ink trails then at Eight. She looks back at him and without warning, he grabs her tentacle and observes it curl around his fingers. Eight’s about to click a more indignant response at his invasion of privacy before noticing his change in color. A gradual hue change from blue to pink, adopting her color after gauging that this ink trail matched her and eventually letting go when he’s done. 

“Ah right, sorry I haven’t been around people that often.” Despite his apologetic words, he doesn’t seem apologetic in the least. [I can tell.] Responding in clicks and gestures with a palm facing upwards, one eyebrow quirked. She can tell from the light in his eyes that he seems amused by it. 

“You know for someone who’s starving, exhausted, and ready to puke on strangers, you’re oddly talkative.” Pushing aside her hand to keep it away from him with two fingers of his own. Eight knows he’s right, but it’s the only way to keep herself from collapsing again. 

[You’re oddly talkative for a workaholic agent.] Both of his eyebrows shoot up and she puts both hands up to make a mock wall. [I heard the old man call you agent 3 earlier. Of course that’s the inference I’d make especially after you just told me you haven’t been around people all that often.] 

There’s silence and Three looks away from her, confirming her statement. A little satisfied, she decides to go ahead and follow the ink trail, reverting to octopus form and hopping through the trails of ink, partially to speed up, partially to feel the comforting feeling of ink against skin. 

Splashes behind her indicate Three’s presence behind her doing the same. Eventually, the spots become a line and she follows it to the end and sees a lock box. She knows it’s familiar, seen it around before, and turns around to look for the key, spotting Three’s grimace. 

“One of these things.” He seems exasperated, Eight doesn’t blame him, she’s had her own fair share of solving tasks with these damned boxes and for a moment she feels a sense of camaraderie with Three’s apparent dislike for the lock boxes. 

[Yeah I know how you feel.] Shrugging as she explores further to look for the key. 

“Octarians love their moving platforms and lock boxes huh.” She doesn’t answer till she gets to a room filled with boxes and looks back at him. 

[You don’t even know half of it.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided that this would be longer than initially projected. Still typed without editing, gooms if you spot errors and awk wording. 
> 
> Three and Eight just seemed like the best names to fit with the story. 
> 
> Eight is speaking in morse, she communicates via tongue clicks and the only reason Three understands it is cause he most likely learned to communicate with Cuttlefish during their outings in the event they came across enemies and didn't want to verbally relay plans.


End file.
